Meet the tenants being forced from their homes by soaring rents in the UK

theguardian.com:

Margaret Perry wants to buy a house one day. But the increases in her energy, water and council tax bills over the past few weeks have dented her ability to save. Then, on Easter Monday, her landlord called to say the monthly rent on her shared house was going up by £500.

Instead of £675 a month, plus bills, for her room in Haringey, north London, her rent would rise to £825 – a 22% increase. “That’s just not an option,” said Perry, who earns about £30,000 a year and lives with two friends. “It’s hard enough as it is.”

The 31-year-old screenwriter is one of a growing number of tenants being priced out by rising rents.

Over the past month, online searches for “rent increase” and “landlord put rent up” reached an all-time high in the UK, according to Google trends data – and average private rents have surged nationally compared with pre-pandemic levels.

“More people have had their rent increased over the past month or so than we’d normally see,” said Anny Cullum, policy officer at renters’ union Acorn. “That may be landlords worried about the cost of living and passing that on to their tenants. Food prices are going up, fuel’s going up, energy’s going up and people are really feeling the squeeze.”

Government guidance says that for existing tenants, rent rises must be “fair and realistic”, in line with “average local rents” – but there is no cap on how much they can charge.

Proposed changes can be challenged at a rent tribunal. But for many, like Perry, “the stress of that doesn’t feel worth it”. Between January 2019 and August 2021, just 341 rent tribunal cases were heard nationally, according to the campaign group Generation Rent. And even if tenants win, they can still be kicked out if the landlord serves a ‘section 21